


Sharing a Soul

by DratTheRat



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Compulsion, Explicit Sexual Content, Horror, M/M, Magic, Memory Loss, Post-Canon, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:59:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13267122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DratTheRat/pseuds/DratTheRat
Summary: Eddie Dean and Cuthbert Allgood were kindred spirits: fierce, loving, passionate, clever men.  Trapped in a space outside time, they devised a plan.  If only they could remember what it was . . .Contains major spoilers for the entire series of novels.





	Sharing a Soul

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is not for everyone, so I felt compelled to start it with an explanation. There really isn't one: 
> 
> I originally wrote this in a burst of insanity a couple of months ago. At the time, I was revising my much less fucked up story, "Playing with Fire" and reading Stephen King's _Tommyknockers_ , which has nothing to do with this story except that it's rather more horror oriented than _Dark Tower_ is in general. Once I had it out of my system, I dismissed it as complete crack, set it aside, and left it to die in a folder of unfinished stories. A couple of days ago, I read through it again and decided that I rather liked it after all, even if it is potentially twisted, disturbing, and generally "out there." So I made a few revisions and decided to subject this fandom to it now. Sorry?

In the end, it was almost like falling asleep. Eddie felt his mind beginning to drift. An oppressive pain settled over him like a pile of heavy blankets he was too cold and tired to try to move away even though he could feel himself suffocating under their stifling weight. He took a last, shuddering breath. Susanna, his wife, Roland, his dinh, Jake, his brother-son winked out. The darkness took him.

An instant later, he woke up.

The darkness remained, but he could breathe easily again, and he knew that this was death. 

Eddie felt a cold stone slab beneath his back, and the air he breathed was chilly but refreshing, slightly damp. Gingerly, he reached up and felt his face. The bandages were still there. He sat up and unwound them. His wound remained. He felt the dimple of the bullet hole in his forehead near his left eyebrow. His eye socket felt brittle, as though the bone had shattered. The eye seemed to be missing, presumably damaged beyond repair by the wound he had taken above it. He was not in pain.

Eddie took a deep breath and began to explore the rest of his body. A section of his hair had been shaved away, probably by the doctors caring for his wound. He fluttered the eyelashes of his right eye against the side of his index finger. The rest of his face and head were intact. He ventured lower. He still had his hands, obviously, and he was wearing clothes. He thought he recognized the soft cotton of the button shirt he had bought in the Calla, though it bore stiff stains - probably blood. He ran his fingers down his denim clad thighs and brought his knees up to his chin so he could rub his shins. The stone slab was cold on his bare feet. They must have removed his shoes when he was lying in his hospital bed, and now here he was, stuck in this dark, cold afterlife without any shoes.

A burst of hysterical laughter escaped into the void. Eddie clapped both hands over his mouth and listened. The silence was deafening. He listened for a while longer but heard only the roaring of his own ears. With nothing better to do, he resolved to investigate his surroundings.

First, he ran his fingers out to his sides and found the edges of the stone slab on which he had awakened. Then, he laid out on his stomach and slowly reached down, down, hoping for a floor. He found one. Smiling, he sat back up, swung his legs over the edge of the slab, and stood. The floor was smooth, cold stone, but Eddie could feel the seams between the bricks as he slowly walked across it, arms outstretched. A slab or table, a floor made of bricks. Surely this was a room and not oblivion after all.

When he felt the wall in front of him, only a few strides from his original resting place, Eddie was consumed by sudden fear that this was a tomb. Had his friends walled his body, bandaged and barefoot, into a sepulcher? Probably not, but Eddie’s heart raced until he found the thick wooden door and, with considerable effort, managed to heave it open.

The new room was much larger than the first and much brighter. It, too, was stone, and, some forty feet away, it opened onto an open air balcony, which was the source of the light. Outside, it appeared to be raining, and a chilly, misty breeze crept through the large, stone room and brushed passed Eddie’s face. A man stood on the balcony, silhouetted against the bright, gray sky. 

The man was tall and lean, and his build reminded Eddie immediately of Roland, though his posture was all wrong. At that distance and against the light, Eddie could not tell for certain which way the man was facing, but he had the impression that he was looking at Eddie and that he was leaning back with his elbows on top of the balcony wall. It was a non-threatening pose, at least, though the stranger clearly had him at a disadvantage, for he could surely see Eddie better than Eddie could see him. At this distance, with his eye not yet accustomed to the light, Eddie could not distinguish the lower half of his body from the wall on which he leaned, and he could not tell whether he wore a weapon.

Slowly, Eddie spread his open palms in what he hoped was a gesture that conveyed neither threat nor surrender and strode steadily towards the stranger on the balcony.

As he approached, the roaring in his ears grew louder, and he stopped and raised his right hand to his uninjured temple. The silhouetted man mirrored the gesture - left hand to left temple - before reaching the same hand back behind him, out into the rain. His hand disappeared briefly, then reappeared. He sliced a line across the gray plane that was not the sky with his index finger. They were behind a waterfall. 

Eddie felt himself laugh again but this time barely heard the noise. It was like a villain’s hideout in James Bond, or maybe a fantasy story about a princess in a secret palace with a fleet of unicorns and a magic two way mirror. It had been eerie, the way the stranger had mirrored his gesture.

Eddie’s laughter died, and his breathing grew ragged. He felt a strong pull in his gut and his groin reach out toward the other man. His mirror. His doppelganger, maybe even, though surely the man on the balcony was too tall to really be his double. Perhaps they were complementary somehow, two parts of a whole. Eddie quickened his pace. The other man waited.

By the time he reached the balcony, Eddie could see the other man clearly. He was about Eddie’s own age - certainly no older - and inches taller than Eddie, but not nearly as tall as Roland - perhaps six feet? An average sort of tall. He was also very slender, with long slim hands like Roland’s and a longish nose set in an otherwise obnoxiously pretty face. He had a green bandana wrapped around his forehead, and it was blocking his right eye. The left one was large and brown - deep brown like Susannah’s though this man had light skin. 

Eddie stopped in front of him, still breathing hard. He couldn’t escape his initial gut feeling that this man had something of his or was somehow part of him, and his now throbbing erection insisted that the only thing for it was to spin the other man around and slam mercilessly into him, make him part of himself, put them back together. He clenched his fists and felt his muscles quiver from the violent shock of his desire and the effort of restraint.

In spite of Eddie’s restlessness, the other man seemed calm. His dark eye swept over Eddie’s face, and his thin lips pursed in thought. He raised a hand, which did not shake, and caressed Eddie’s empty eye socket before running the tip of his index finger around the edges of the hole in his forehead. 

Eddie’s arousal increased. He was sure that his whole body was shaking now. He dug his fingernails into his palms.

Finally, the stranger reached up with his other hand and pulled the bandana from his own head. The covered eye - his right - was missing completely, though his wound was different from Eddie’s. Instead of a clean hole in his forehead, the bullet that had taken this eye had blown apart the socket, perhaps grazing his face at an angle. Eddie had an inkling that, though the result was grotesque, it might not have been a fatal wound. Something clicked inside his mind - should he know this man? But he was beyond analytical thinking. 

The stranger was still caressing his wound, and Eddie found himself reaching up to do the same. They did not look alike, but this, at least, was mirrored. Eddie wanted his left eye back. His other hand rose to clutch at the other man’s face. The man closed his remaining eye, and Eddie pulled him down and kissed him.

He came willingly, breathing unevenly into Eddie’s mouth. Not so calm after all. Eddie nipped at his lips and pressed his tongue into his mouth, kissing him with all the brutal force of his desire until he felt a warm, wet drip upon his cheek. Eddie gasped and pulled back - was the other man crying?

No, it was worse. The gaping wound where his right eye had been, which had seemed clean and healed, was raw and bleeding. Blood pooled a little in the socket before flowing down his cheek, around the curve of his nose, and catching in the corner of his mouth. Eddie took another step back and pointed.

“You’re bleeding,” he said. He could hear his voice echo in his head, but the roar of the waterfall drowned out his words.

The stranger understood, though. He nodded, then stepped forward and reached out toward Eddie again. He ran his finger over Eddie’s bullet hole and dipped the tip inside. There was no pain, but Eddie was not surprised when the stranger showed him his finger covered in blood. His cock was harder than ever. This time, the other man kissed Eddie, and Eddie tasted his blood.

Suddenly, the other man pulled back and grinned. His wound was soft and palpitating and bleeding profusely. A pearly nub of partially formed eyeball sat amidst the oozing gore of his previously empty socket. Blood had trickled into his mouth and filled the gaps between his teeth. Eddie’s body longed for him.

He reached out, and the stranger caught his hand. With catlike grace, he spun Eddie around and led him back into the large stone room until they reached another heavy wooden door, much like the one that Eddie had entered through. He leaned back against the door, and Eddie took the opportunity to press him against it, grinding his aching cock against the other man’s thigh. He felt an answering erection pressing into the crease between his own thigh and his pelvis, and he moaned as he sucked on the other man’s neck. The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed against Eddie’s nose, and Eddie felt the vibration of his answering groan though it was still too loud to hear it. After a moment, the taller man pushed him away, opened the door, and drew Eddie inside. The door slammed shut behind them.

There was a candle burning in this room, and by the flicker of the firelight Eddie could see a simple bed. His observation ended there. He kissed the man again and drove him back toward the bed until his knees buckled against it and he sat, breaking the kiss. He reached immediately for the fastenings of Eddie’s trousers, and, when his cock sprang free, Eddie wasted no time in shoving it into his partner’s hot, wet mouth.

The man fidgeted as he let Eddie thrust into his mouth, and Eddie looked down and saw him maneuvering out of his own trousers, revealing his own straining erection, as well as a bloody wound on his thigh. Eddie assumed that the wound on his own leg, a souvenir of his jaunt to Maine with Roland, was bleeding and healing as well. 

“I need to be inside you,” Eddie said through gritted teeth. 

The other man pulled back immediately, climbed onto the bed, and offered himself on his hands and knees. Eddie hurried after him and plunged his spit slicked cock into the stranger’s waiting hole without any further preparation. 

In this room, further from the roar of the waterfall, Eddie could hear his partner’s gasping breaths; he was sure that he was hurting him, but desperation drove him on.

“What should I do?” he asked, panicked, even as he continued to thrust.

“Don’t stop,” the other man spoke for the first time. The clear voice of a young man. It was not familiar. “We need to finish.”

“I could . . .” Eddie trailed off. He couldn’t give him time to adjust. His body was desperate to join with the other man’s, to complete the healing process. And he had no idea what he was doing; he had never been with a man. He began to laugh hysterically.

The other man laughed, too, though he was still gasping. “Shift a little,” he suggested.

Eddie thrust at different angles until the other man cried out. To Eddie’s shock, he realized that he was saying his name, “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” over and over again like a mantra.

Eddie tried to reach around to stroke his cock, but it was too difficult to keep thrusting at the same time, so he gave up. He thrust mercilessly, and his partner’s hands slipped on the sheets; he fell so that his face and chest were pressed into the mattress, but he did not complain. Eddie was close, but he didn’t think he could be hitting his partner’s prostate anymore. 

“Don’t come,” he found himself saying, “You need to do me after.”

“Yes,” the other man choked out.

Eddie came, spasming uncontrollably into his partner’s body. He pulled out and collapsed.

Vision blurry, he watched the other man sit back on his haunches. There was so much blood - on the sheets and on his body. The slender man stripped off his shirt, and Eddie saw more wounds there, mostly healed up, but still covered in fresh blood. One was in his sternum - that had been the fatal shot. A new eyeball sat lidless in his still healing socket, and Eddie realized that his blurry vision must be due to the return of his own left eye. He tried to blink and found that only his right eye closed, and the blurriness intensified.

The other man tugged at Eddie’s shirt, so he sat up slightly to let him pull it off. He was moving more slowly than Eddie had, perhaps because the healing was almost finished, perhaps because he was in pain from Eddie’s brutal fucking. Perhaps he was simply more experienced.

Eddie took a deep breath and spread his legs, waiting for his turn. The man settled between them and sucked two fingers into his mouth before pushing them into Eddie’s virgin ass and guiding them straight to his prostate. Eddie gasped. His partner leaned over him so they were face to face.

“I can’t give you much,” he said, “Too desperate. By Gan it’s like nothing I’ve known. What the fuck did we do?” He kissed Eddie, plunging his tongue into his mouth, then sat back on his haunches. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, “It heals right up.”

That made sense, and Eddie found it somewhat heartening as the man slicked his cock with his own blood and pushed it into Eddie, bending his legs up over his shoulders as he went. Either because of the strange healing or the little bit of preparation he had been given, it hurt less than Eddie had expected, and he cried out in a mix of pleasure and pain as the stranger slammed against his prostate. Was this how Susannah had felt when he fucked her? On his back like this with a man thrusting in between his legs he felt like a woman, and he found himself imagining that he was Susannah and the stranger was him. He could almost see a resemblance between them now, around the nose and mouth especially, and in the shape of his eyebrows now that his face was nearly completely assembled. 

Eddie reached for his shirt and pressed it against his partner’s face, wiping away as much blood as he could. He had two eyes now, with lids and long lashes, such a deep, deep brown. Those dark eyes were really quite beautiful.

“Cuthbert,” Eddie whispered.

Cuthbert’s eyes widened, and he whimpered just a little at the mention of his name. Then he thrust in hard and leaned between Eddie’s spread legs to kiss him while he came. Eddie’s body tingled, and he wrapped his arms and legs around the other man until the waves of energy had finished dancing between them. At last, Cuthbert rolled aside.

“What is this?” Eddie asked, “What did we do.”

“I think . . .” Cuthbert paused and stared up at the ceiling. Eddie rolled onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow to look down at him. Cuthbert’s gaze adjusted to meet his, the whites of his eyes bright in contrast to his dark irises and bloody skin.

“I think we are sharing a soul,” he said, and Eddie knew he was right. He remembered more now. He had been here before.

*******************

Once, Eddie remembered, this had been his room. He remembered sitting on this bed, watching a war movie on a little black and white television that ran without being plugged in and never broadcast sound, only static that sounded like the waterfall outside. One of the heroes in the movie looked a little like Eddie might if he were a movie star - taller and absurdly handsome in a delicate, almost feminine way. That character died, and Eddie gave up on the movie. He shut off the TV and took a walk around the large stone room. It was full of shelves - books (some in English, some in a language he could not read), cups, clothes, jigsaw puzzles, the articulated skeletons of rodents. He never needed to eat here, but sometimes he would scoop the water from the waterfall into a cup and drink it just to ingest something out of habit. Later, when he needed to piss, he would do it in the same cup, toss it over the balcony, and rinse out the cup. He didn’t dare stand on the mist slick balcony wall, or even on a chair, so that he could piss into the waterfall. This was no life, but he hadn’t been ready to die. Time hardly seemed to pass; it never got dark outside; he never seemed to age. Every time he thought of putting himself out of his misery he would find a new book or a new program on TV or a collection of crossword puzzles that were easy enough not to be frustrating, and he would decide that he could wait a little longer. He couldn’t remember his own past anymore, or who he was, or why he was here. Waiting.

While he was browsing the articulated skeletons, the door on the other side of the room opened. Eddie had been in there once (probably more than once since his memory seemed limited - he probably went in every time he forgot what was inside), and he had found it disturbing and unpleasant. That room was windowless, like his bedroom, but it was perfectly square with a raised stone platform in the center. A tomb. But it was always empty.

Eddie ducked behind a shelf and watched a man emerge from the room. It was the man from the movie, Movie Star Eddie, in full color, his clothes littered with bloody bullet holes, his right eye blown away, his cheek dripping with gore. Life size and in color, the man looked less like Eddie - his hair was brown instead of black, and his remaining eye was much darker than Eddie’s hazel ones. Eddie decided he needed a different name, then he realized he had one. He knew this man well.

“Cuthbert!” Eddie called, stepping out from behind the shelf and raising a hand in greeting. It had been a long time since he had spoken aloud, and Eddie felt foolish when the roar of the waterfall swallowed his voice. His movement must have caught Cuthbert’s eye, though, because he froze and stared at him, uncomprehending. 

Eddie extended his raised hand and smiled in what he hoped was a welcoming and non-threatening way. He was glad to see his friend again. After a moment, Cuthbert raised a bloody hand and smiled back half heartedly. He still looked more confused than anything, but he allowed Eddie to shepherd him into the blessed quiet of the bedroom. 

“Better, yeah?” Eddie said to break the silence, “Now we can hear each other talk. Long time no see.”

Cuthbert continued to stare.

“I am dead,” he said at last, “This is not what I expected. My friends . . .” he trailed off.

Eddie remembered the movie. One of his friends had died in the battle, another a day or so before. 

“No one else ever comes here,” he told Cuthbert, “It’s only you and me. I’m sorry.”

Cuthbert looked at him for a long time, then he turned and left the room. Through the crack of the closing door, Eddie saw him walk to the balcony and stand looking out at the waterfall.

After a time, Eddie joined him. He was crying. Eddie rested a hand on the other man’s back between his shoulder blades, and he turned to face him, unashamed. Eddie took him in his arms, and together they sank to the ground and leaned against the balcony in the mist while Cuthbert cried. By the time he was all cried out, he seemed to remember Eddie and that they had been here together before, but that was all either of them could come up with. This conversation was conducted in silence; there was nothing to say.

Next, Eddie had collected water from the waterfall and helped Cuthbert wash away the blood. His wounds were still there, but they were dry and bloodless under the superficial gore. They chucked his ruined clothes over the balcony, and Eddie found him some new ones. The bandana he had worn around his neck he washed and dried and tied around his head to cover the hole in his face. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Eddie said when they were back in the bedroom, “It’s a shit thing to happen, but you don’t have to cover it up.”

Cuthbert shrugged. “How did you die?” he asked instead, “I don’t remember from before.”

“Me either,” Eddie admitted, “and I don’t have any wounds. I remember you were here, and then you were gone. Poison, maybe?”

“Old age,” Cuthbert quipped, grinning, “I reckon you’ve a year on me at least.”

Eddie nodded. “You’re remembering a conversation that we had before,” he said.

“Round and round and round,” Cuthbert muttered, “Roland always said I had an excellent memory, but not here, I think. No chance to learn from our mistakes.”

“I thought you were more fun than this,” Eddie teased.

Cuthbert laughed. “Give me a little time. I had my face shot off today.”

“I’m sorry about your friends,” said Eddie, “Do you think dying would be worse if you knew you’d end up here.”

“Fuck yes." He heaved a shaky sigh and Eddie wondered whether he would cry again.

“I like it better when we’re here together,” he told Cuthbert.

*******************

“I like it better when we’re here together,” Eddie said again.

Cuthbert laughed softly. “Me too. Everything is foggy in between, everything but loneliness. May I touch you?”

Now it was Eddie’s turn to laugh. Had they not just fucked each other into the mattress in the frenzied desperation of some sort of healing soul magic?

Cuthbert grinned. “I see your point.” He took hold of Eddie’s hand and squeezed it.

“Did we have sex before?” Eddie asked.

“Not like that we didn’t,” Cuthbert said.

“How was it, then? I don’t remember yet.”

“Like lonely boys who can’t be with the one they really want. We jerked each other in the dark. It did nothing for my eyesight.”

Eddie had no idea whether the myth existed in Cuthbert’s world, whether he was making a joke or simply referring to the lack of healing last time they’d gotten each other off, so he felt compelled to say, “I always heard that masturbating made you blind.”

Cuthbert snorted. “Good thing we’re not one person then. It would have been a shame to lose the other.”

“Two people, one soul,” Eddie mused, “How did that happen.”

“Roland is the center of the universe,” Cuthbert remarked with confidence, “It might simply be because that’s how he sees us.”

“I hope not,” Eddie said, “He’d be even more tortured if he knew what happened to us when we died.”

“Or it could be the boy,” Cuthbert continued.

“What? Jake?”

Cuthbert looked at him, confused. “Who? No. The boy with the wood and the chickens. It happens out of sequence, but that’s when we were born. I’m almost sure of it.”

“I was born in Brooklyn,” Eddie said.

Cuthbert scoffed. “Don’t be foolish. You don’t exist until Roland meets you on the flying ship. Now that you are here again I can remember when you left. I saw it on the picture box you like.”

“Television,” Eddie corrected automatically, “Airplane.”

“Telly vision,” Cuthbert said, “Air plain.”

“You’re better at that than Roland.”

“Surprised? Give me a hard one.”

“Automobile.”

Cuthbert laughed. “Automobile,” he repeated seamlessly. “We’ve played this game before.”

“I had a whole life before that,” Eddie insisted, “My mom, my brother - he was there. I was addicted to heroin.”

Cuthbert made a noncommittal noise.

“Fuck,” said Eddie. “And your life, is that real?”

“Everything with Roland in it probably is,” he said, “And I’ve known him since we were small. I like to think I didn’t cease to exist when he wasn’t with me, but . . .” he shrugged and grimaced. “I don’t think I come here until I die. But even if my mother did give birth to me that wasn’t where I began. It was with that boy. I was fourteen.”

Eddie nodded. “You were fourteen and on your way back from Mejis, and the Pink Grapefruit sent you todash, and Black Thirteen sent me when we were coming to the Calla. There was a frightened little boy and lots of spiders, and we helped him out.”

“Maybe he thought we were the same person - that you were me grown up. Maybe he gave us a single soul.”

“It’s possible,” Eddie admitted, “He’s the Author - Gan speaks through him.”

Cuthbert turned onto his side and looked at Eddie for a long moment. Then he burst out laughing and did not stop. 

Eddie rose and gathered up his bloody clothes. 

“No,” he decided after a moment, “The Author doesn’t have as much power as that. He’s just writing one version of things as he hears it from Gan. What he writes affects us some, but he didn’t really create us, though you’re right that there was something odd about that time we met. It’s out of sync. I think you were right before. Before you . . .” _fucked me_ Eddie didn’t say. His body tingled with the aftermath of pleasure and strange magic.

Cuthbert stopped laughing. He stood and followed Eddie’s example, gathering his ruined clothes and stripping the bed of its soiled sheets.

“I don’t remember what I said,” he prodded at last, “My mind was elsewhere.” He smirked, and Eddie could feel himself blush, though, through the blood drying on his skin, he doubted that it showed.

“You said, ‘What the fuck did we do.’ I think we did something. Let’s clean up. I want to think some more.”

Cuthbert nodded and heaved the door open with his shoulder. The roaring of the waterfall flooded Eddie’s ears, and he followed him to the balcony where they tossed the bloody linens over.

Naked and bloody, Cuthbert padded over to the shelves and came back with a bucket and a stack of cloths and towels. Holding on to the handle with both hands, he pushed the bucket into the waterfall. Eddie could see the muscles in his lithe, bare body tense as he fought to maintain control of the bucket under the force of the falling water. He pulled it back and dumped it over Eddie’s head.

Eddie gasped at the cold and shivered. He was about to be indignant, but Cuthbert was already refilling the bucket, and Eddie wanted to be clean and dry as soon as possible. He scrubbed himself with an abrasive cloth, wetting it again and again until he had done the best he could to clean himself. Then Cuthbert, who had been doing the same after dousing himself with frigid water, too, turned him around and scrubbed at him some more. 

The other man’s hands were slender but strong, and Eddie found himself thinking again of both Roland and Susannah. He leaned into Cuthbert’s touch and felt himself begin to grow hard again already. Cuthbert did not touch him there; he focused on Eddie’s back and hair - all regrown now - places Eddie couldn’t see, before tugging on his bicep to turn him around and turning around himself. Eddie returned the favor, wiping hidden bits of blood from Cuthbert’s now flawless, unscarred skin. He resisted the temptation to press his hard-on against his companion’s slick, damp ass and instead squeezed his shoulder to tell him he was done before quickly turning away and wrapping himself in a towel. 

Cuthbert did the same, then picked up his green bandana from where he had let it fall what seemed like aeons ago. He wrung it out and draped it around his neck, then disappeared into the shelves to look for clothes and sheets.

Eddie waited for a moment and then followed. He chose a different aisle than Cuthbert and dressed himself before returning to their room. The bed was made, and Cuthbert was lying on it, clean and naked.

Eddie stopped in the doorway, and the heavy door swung back and hit him. He stumbled forward, and Cuthbert laughed.

“You can’t get enough of me, can you,” he said.

“It’s wrong,” Eddie objected.

Cuthbert shrugged. “It’s not normal,” he agreed, “We’re not in love - we’re more like kin.”

“It’s sick,” Eddie added.

Cuthbert shrugged again, “We have one soul between two bodies; it wants us to be one. I’m sure it will be out of our system before long. It wasn’t like this last time you were here.”

Eddie gave in to the urge to step closer to the bed. “You’re obnoxiously attractive,” he said.

Cuthbert grinned and crawled towards him, “Narcissist,” he smirked, “Don’t worry, you’ll go back to pining for your lover soon enough. I’ll pine for mine, and we’ll have nothing but depressing fumbles in the dark. Maybe not even that.”

Was Cuthbert’s lover Roland? Eddie could not remember and did not ask. Roland had never said anything about Cuthbert’s love life or implied they had been anything but friends, but he was good at keeping secrets. Instead, Eddie felt compelled to point out, “We don’t look that much alike - kindred, like you said. We started out with kindred souls.”

Cuthbert stretched out on his stomach, facing Eddie, who stood at the foot of the bed. He reached up, undid Eddie’s fly, and drew out his already hard cock. “Tell me your theory,” he said.

Eddie gasped as Cuthbert swallowed his cock with practiced ease. He moaned and tangled his fingers in his own damp hair. Cuthbert pulled back.

“I’m listening,” he reminded Eddie.

Eddie laughed and tried to compose his thoughts.

“Memory isn’t so good here,” he began, staring down at Cuthbert’s bobbing head as his water-blacked hair dried into brown, “But I think we were always here together.”

Cuthbert moaned something that might have been an affirmative.

“Maybe it always ends like this, or maybe we did something the very first time. There must have been a first time.”

Cuthbert pulled back to lick his tip and ducked his head to tease his balls. “First time for everything,” he murmured against Eddie’s soft sack before pulling one into his mouth.

“Christ!” Eddie cried. 

Cuthbert hummed and sucked the other.

“You’ve certainly done this before,” Eddie moaned.

“Yes,” Cuthbert said, “And probably with you, though . . .” he shrugged and swallowed Eddie’s cock again, swirling his tongue around it.

“I think we sold one of our souls for something that we thought would help and, instead of going to Hell or something in return, we have to share.”

Cuthbert pulled back again. “We could have traded it for the ability to heal each other at the end,” he suggested, pumping Eddie’s length with his fine boned hand.

Eddie shook his head, “I don’t think we’d need to do that if we each had a soul.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I think we sold it for that meeting, the one that’s out of sync. We sold it for a chance to speak to each other while we were alive.”

Cuthbert laughed. “But we never remember.” He shook his head and reached for Eddie’s hand. He placed it on his own head, and Eddie absently stroked his hair and massaged the muscles in his jaw below his ear. 

“That was the real price,” Eddie gasped as Cuthbert sucked him down again, “Next time, we have to remember. The other soul is in the meeting. It _is_ that meeting. We can get it back.” 

Cuthbert squeezed his ass and pulled him flush against his lips. Eddie’s cock pressed against the back of his throat, which convulsed, but he didn’t pull back. Eddie thrust a few times into his mouth and came. Cuthbert pulled back a little then, taking the come into his mouth before swallowing it.

Eddie pulled him up to kiss him. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Try to fucking remember,” Cuthbert grinned.

Eddie laughed. “I don’t know what to do for you.” He tucked his soft cock back into his trousers. He wasn’t about to let the other man fuck him again. His uncontrollable desire was fading already.

Cuthbert tugged at his shoulders, and he toppled onto the bed on top of him and crawled with him to the head of it. Cuthbert laid down on his back and opened his arm so that Eddie could snuggle into its circle with his head on Cuthbert’s shoulder, like Eddie had held Susannah so many times. Eddie’s hand came to rest on the other man’s chest, and, although he no longer felt any desire himself, he let it drift down his naked body towards his half hard cock.

“Only if you want to,” Cuthbert murmured in his ear, “It’s fading for me, too.”

“I want to,” Eddie said truthfully, “I need us to be even.”

“Alright.” Cuthbert kissed Eddie tenderly in his hair.

Eddie’s hand closed over his companion’s cock and massaged it until it did not fit in his grip anymore. Then he propped himself up on his elbow began to jerk him off in earnest. 

“Oh, Eddie,” Cuthbert moaned, and Eddie’s hand moved harder and faster.

Eddie tore his eyes from Cuthbert’s cock and looked up at his face. He rocked his head from side to side, eyes closed. 

“Look at me,” Eddie commanded.

Cuthbert’s dark eyes flew open. A tear sat in the corner of one, and Eddie kissed it away. Cuthbert’s hips thrust up into Eddie’s fist. 

“That’s it,” Eddie told him, “Come for me, Cuthbert.”

“Kiss me on the lips,” Cuthbert requested.

Eddie did, and Cuthbert came immediately. He pulled Eddie’s hand up to his mouth and licked his own come from it.

“You kissed me when you came before,” Eddie reminded him, “Do you need that to come?”

“No,” Cuthbert replied, “But it helps.” He rolled away and dressed, tying his green bandana back around his neck.

When he was finished, he flipped on the TV in the corner and laid down again next to Eddie just in time to see Jake get hit by a van.

Cuthbert’s hand flew over his mouth, and Eddie burst into tears.

Cuthbert turned to him and dropped his hand from his mouth. His dark eyes were wide and pained, and his lips were parted. “I’m . . .” he began.

“Don’t you say it,” Eddie choked. He scuttled backwards off the bed and left the room.

He ran across the large, stone storeroom to the door on the other side and leaned heavily against it. “Jake, oh Jake,” he sobbed into the roaring of the waterfall. 

He looked up and saw Cuthbert hovering in the doorway on the other side of the room. When he noticed Eddie watching him, he withdrew back to the bedroom, and the door closed inaudibly behind him.

Eddie heaved the door to the tomb room open and looked inside. It was empty, of course. No one else ever came here: he remembered telling Cuthbert that before. He slipped inside the room and leaned against the wall next to the door, breathing in the chilly darkness. After a while, his tears dried. Eddie sat there for what felt like days. Jake did not come.

When he finally left the dark, sepulchral room, his eyes stung with the brightness of the light on the other side of the waterfall. It might have been days after all. Or months. Time was so strange here. It only seemed to move normally when he was with Cuthbert. Eddie winced. They had so little time together; it had been cruel to leave him alone.

Gingerly, he tugged open the bedroom door. The candle had burned out, and Cuthbert had not replaced it. He was sitting at the end of the bed with his knees tucked up under his chin, staring at the flickering light of the TV. His eyes shot over to Eddie.

“She’s dreaming of you,” he said, “It’s very strange.”

“Why should it be?” Eddie asked, his mood swinging from contrite to petulant in an instant. “She’s my wife.” He stood at the end of the bed where he could see the television. 

In Susannah’s dream, he and Jake were wearing Santa hats, shaking their heads, and smiling.

“I take it back,” he said, contrite again, “That’s strange.”

Cuthbert smiled. It was the sweet smile that had so appealed so Susan, warm and a little crooked. Though they did look a little bit alike, Eddie didn’t think his own smile was as charming as that. He joined Cuthbert on the bed, and they watched TV in silence.

A different boy was travelling with Roland and Susannah now, but Eddie could tell they were no longer ka-tet. Eddie watched in awe as the boy drew a magic door and Susannah stepped through it into New York City. She wheeled her way through Central Park until she met a man who looked like Eddie. Cuthbert sat up straight.

“From a different world,” Eddie murmured, “I wonder if you’re there as well, and your friends.”

“Maybe,” Cuthbert whispered, “How many times has this happened, do you think? How many wives have stepped through that door to how many different Eddies from how many different worlds?”

“Only she escapes,” Eddie replied, “The rest of us are all trapped here. I’m so glad she escapes.”

Cuthbert squeezed his shoulder. 

“Roland might, too,” he added.

“You know he doesn’t." Cuthbert got up and turned off the TV. “I don’t want to see the end.”

“Bert,” said Eddie, “If you could change one thing, what would it be.”

“I can’t save Susan,” Cuthbert said, obviously thinking of Roland, “I won’t see you until after she is dead.”

“Roland was still mourning Susan when I met him,” Eddie admitted, “But I think your death hurt him even more.”

“I cannot save myself, either. If you tell me I will die in battle when I am twenty-four I will have no way to prevent it.”

Eddie was sitting at the head of the bed, leaning back against the headboard. Cuthbert laid down beside him on his back with his knees up and looked up at him.

“I would save Alain,” he said, “Even if he only lived one more day. If I knew we were destined to shoot him on his way back from reconnaissance maybe we could do something different.” He fingered his green bandana. “Who knows what else that might change, how much of Roland’s guilt that might alleviate?”

“He was your lover,” Eddie realized suddenly, “not Roland.”

Cuthbert nodded. “Is it a selfish choice?” His dark eyes sparkled wetly in the near darkness.

“No. Oh God, no,” Eddie whispered. How lucky was he that Susannah survived? “I would save Jake if I could,” he said, “But I don’t know how . . .”

Cuthbert reached for his hand, but his long fingers passed through Eddie’s body like a mist.

“I’ll tell you about Alain,” Eddie said, “I’ll remember next time.”

Cuthbert smiled sadly, white teeth standing out in the shadows. He vanished like the Cheshire Cat.

Eddie stared at the spot where he had been for a long time before he got bored and went looking for a copy of _Alice in Wonderland_. Later he turned on the TV, which was showing a film about two boys growing up in a world that was kind of like the Middle Ages and kind of like the Old West. 

“Kids’ movies are so weird,” he muttered to himself. There wasn’t any sound, and he couldn’t relate to these characters. He turned the TV off.

*******************

Eddie was watching a war movie on a little black and white television that ran without being plugged in and never broadcast sound, only static that sounded like the waterfall outside. One of the heroes in the movie looked a little like Eddie might if he were a movie star - taller and absurdly handsome in a delicate, almost feminine way. That character died, and Eddie gave up on the movie. He shut off the TV and took a walk around the large stone room. 

While he was browsing the articulated skeletons, the door on the other side of the room opened, and Eddie ducked behind a shelf and watched a man emerge. It was the man from the movie, Movie Star Eddie, in full color, his clothes littered with bloody bullet holes, his right eye blown away, his cheek dripping with gore. Eddie realized he knew this man well.

“Cuthbert!” he called, stepping out from behind the shelf and raising a hand in greeting. The roar of the waterfall swallowed his voice.

Cuthbert froze and stared at him, uncomprehending. He allowed himself to be shepherded into the blessed quiet of the bedroom. 

“Better, yeah?” Eddie said to break the silence, “Now we can hear each other talk. Long time no see.”

Cuthbert continued to stare.

“I am dead,” he said at last, “This is not what I expected. My friends . . .” he trailed off.

“No one else ever comes here. It’s only you and me. I’m sorry.”

Cuthbert looked at him for a long time, then he turned and left the room. He walked to the balcony, stared at the waterfall, and cried. By the time he was all cried out, he remembered Eddie’s name and that they had been here together before, but that was all either of them could come up with. Once his wounds were clean of superficial gore, he washed and dried the green bandana he had worn around his neck and tied it around his head to cover the hole in his face. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Eddie said when they were back in the bedroom, “It’s a shit thing to happen, but it you don’t have to cover it up.”

Cuthbert shrugged. “How did you die?” he asked instead, “I don’t remember from before.”

“Me either, and I don’t have any wounds. I remember you were here, and then you were gone. Poison, maybe?”

“Old age,” Cuthbert quipped, grinning, “I reckon you’ve a year on me at least.”

Eddie nodded. “You’re remembering a conversation that we had before.”

“Round and round and round,” Cuthbert muttered, “There was nothing different in the meeting.”

“I haven’t been there yet.”

Cuthbert smiled wanly. “Right.”

*******************

Lately, Cuthbert felt compelled to watch the picture box. There was a man on it who reminded Cuthbert of what he might look like if he weren’t so tall and handsome. He laughed at his own vanity. The man was handsome enough, he allowed, and he still had both his eyes. Cuthbert could not remember how he’d lost his. He couldn’t remember his own past anymore, or who he was, or why he was here. Time hardly seemed to pass; it never got dark outside; he never seemed to age. Every time he thought of putting himself out of his misery he would lose himself in a new book, or try to learn the other, strange language half the books were in, or articulate the skeletons of the dead rodents that he sometimes found under the shelves. How did they get in? Lately, though, none of those things had interested him. He stared at the picture box, but he didn’t know why.

On the picture box, the man who looked a little like Cuthbert went to sleep next to his beautiful, dark skinned wife and woke up somewhere else. Cuthbert had seen this happen before, but this time it was different. He blinked away the daze that always settled over his mind when he watched the box for too long and sat up straight.

The man on the picture box sat up, too, or tried to. He was lying on his back in an evergreen forest, and a boy in his teens was pressing the end of a sharp stick against his jugular. The man and the boy had a conversation Cuthbert couldn’t hear, and the tension between them eased. 

Cuthbert stared at the boy. He was slim and lanky with dark hair and eyes and a fine boned, pretty face. He looked a little like the man who looked a little like Cuthbert. 

Cuthbert remembered everything.

“Please, Eddie, please,” he found himself whispering. 

He crept right up to the picture box (telly vision) and watched his younger self and Eddie talk. He could not hear what they were saying, but he _knew_ Eddie didn’t remember what they had agreed to. _He_ never remembered while _he_ was alive. 

Cuthbert cursed and sped out of the bedroom into the large stone storeroom. Frantically, he searched the shelves for something that would allow him to communicate with Eddie. He tore the books off the shelves and brushed aside the articulated skeletons. He looked under all the clothes and sheets and towels. He spilled the jigsaw puzzles onto the floor. Finally, he found it in a hatbox. The box was gray and dusty and hidden behind a stack of paperback books in Eddie’s language. He pulled it down from the shelf and found it surprisingly heavy. Cuthbert opened the lid and sucked a breath in through his teeth. 

The thing was smooth and dark, much darker than the one he had seen before. Holding his breath, he carefully withdrew it from the box. It was red, he realized once he had it in the light, deep red like fresh blood. Dark, like a great quantity of it. Red Number One - the beginning of the Wizard’s Rainbow.

Cuthbert drew a shuddering breath, held the cold ball in both hands, and closed his eyes. He tried to reach out to Eddie like he used to reach out to Alain, but it was fruitless. He knew he was touchblind - he had only been able to reach out to Alain because Alain had been reaching back - and Eddie, touchblind or otherwise, was in another world. He needed something magic to spark the connection.

Carefully, he lowered the red ball back into the box, rushed back to the bedroom, and stood in front of the picture box. Young Cuthbert and Eddie were saying goodbye to the boy with the woodpile. He had so little time. He drew the ball back out of the box and balanced it in the palm of his left hand, his long fingers spread to support its weight. Then, with his right hand, he punched the glass screen of the picture box with all his might.

The glass shattered, and the picture went out with a bang and a flash of blinding light. Sourceless electricity shot through his body into the ball, which began to glow softly. His heart skipped a beat from the jolt, and he stumbled, almost dropping the glowing orb. His right hand slipped, and the sharp glass edges of the screen dug into the artery in his wrist. As he fell backwards, he pulled his bloody hand toward his center and cradled Red Number One against his chest. He felt his life force seeping out of his body and concentrated on Eddie. A bright red light formed in the center of the glowing ball, then emanated outward and consumed the room.

Cuthbert disappeared. Without his body to cushion it, the red ball, dark again, fell onto the stone floor and shattered. 

For the first time since it had been called into existence the waiting room behind the waterfall was empty. It flickered and blinked out.

Cuthbert’s body broke when he landed, as though he had fallen from a great height, and warm, cloying blood oozed into his mouth. He choked and tried to look around. The pain was mostly gone, but he couldn’t move at all. The sky above him was deep red. 

Suddenly, Eddie was there. “What the fuck did you do?!” he cried.

Cuthbert smiled. He felt blood leak out the sides of his mouth. He struggled to speak around the blood in his mouth and eventually managed, “Broke your picture box.”

“Shit,” said Eddie.

Young Cuthbert edged into his field of vision.

“Tell him,” Cuthbert managed, “You have to . . .” he choked again.

Young Cuthbert had his hand over his mouth in the same gesture his older counterpart had used when Jake had been hit by the van. In that moment, Eddie remembered everything with perfect clarity, but he could already feel it fading. He let the memories of the world behind the waterfall begin to slip inevitably away and focused on what he knew in this world, what Young Cuthbert needed to know.

“Cuthbert son of Robert,” he commanded, and the lanky teen turned toward him, though his large, horrified eyes kept creeping toward the broken body of his older self. “When you are twenty-four years old, you will die in battle in a place called Jericho Hill.”

The boy turned his full attention towards Eddie and nodded, serious, accepting, and unsurprised.

“A day or so before, you and Roland will accidentally kill your friend, Alain. He will go on a reconnaissance mission, and you will shoot him when he comes back.”

“No,” the boy said, “We would never . . .”

“Ka,” Eddie explained wryly.

Young Cuthbert scoffed. He looked back at his older self and knelt beside him. He reached out to touch his cheek, and a red spark flew between their flesh. He snatched his hand back and then tried again, this time reaching for the green bandana the older Cuthbert always wore. He pulled it off - sparks flew again - and held it to his chest. 

“You can’t . . .” the dying man burbled, “. . . He hasn't given it to you yet.”

Young Cuthbert nodded and reluctantly handed the bloody bandana to Eddie. 

“You might be able to stop it,” Eddie said, “Save Alain. Save some of Roland’s guilt, and, when you die, maybe all of this will end. We have our own souls again, I think.”

The boy nodded again, this time at Eddie. “Thank you,” he said. Then he reached out for his counterpart’s cheek again. This time he took the shock unflinching, then rested his hand on the dying man’s face. A red glow passed into his hand, highlighting the veins on the back of it. The red tinge of the sky began to seep away, and the dying man’s body grew transparent. 

Young Cuthbert looked up at Eddie. “If this doesn’t work,” he said, “We’ll try something different next time. Round and round and round.” 

Eddie was not sure which version of his friend was speaking. He reached out to touch the young man’s shoulder, and a red spark passed between them, too. A weight that Eddie hadn’t been aware of lifted from his chest, the dead man on the ground vanished completely, and the remaining redness in the sky dissipated back to the purple aura created by the combination of the Pink Grapefruit and Black Thirteen.

Young Cuthbert rose and embraced Eddie. “I might never see you again,” he said.

“Maybe you will,” Eddie told him, “Maybe this time we’ll find the Clearing at the End of the Path.”

Cuthbert nodded into his neck, then drew back suddenly. “Farewell,” he said, and vanished.

Eddie woke up.


End file.
